Introduction

Hi, I'm Faladir, one of those 'noobs/noobz/nabz' that plays 'way too easy and OP Garen'
actually, I'm lying, Garen was (as we all know!!!!!!) OP 1 YEAR AGO, I'm not saying that garen is the hardest champ, it's even easy to be good with garen, but it's (apparentley) hard to be AWESOME with him...

I made this guide because there aren't any good garen guides anymore (No offense :P). Before the 'cassiopeia patch' there was one legendary garen guide, and yes I mean rusPiglets' guide: 'Garen - cry me an ocean', It was this guide than turned me into a fan of our broadshouldered friend ;) and his ridiculously large sword. Ah the days of stackin sunfires and spinning and never having to worry about ultis..., those were the days...

Unfortunately since the 'cass-patch' they made sunfire more expensive, its passive unique, but worst of all, THEY NERFED OUR SPIN DOWN TO THE GROUND!!!!! before the patch our spin did more than enough dammage without having to buy AD, especially with a few sunfires, but after the patch I tried the old garen and saw that our spin did NO DAMAGE, especially endgame :( and it's not like we have any other tanking abilities with stuns or taunts...

Not wanting to give up on the might of demacia, I tried several builds and concluded that AD Garen is the way to go, tank Garen had a nice run, but the responsibility for such awesomeness in just one champ was just too great so I can understand why he was nerfed and DPS Garen..., who are we kidding :P, that guy has always been a joke ^^

So in this guide we will be focusing Garen with mainly A LOT OF AD, a nice bit of lifesteal and some crit chance, I doesn't surprise me there weren't guides like this before because before the 'cass-patch' it wouldn't have been necessary let alone be possible :P, atleast the 'cass-patch' gave us a way out :(

Ofcourse eveyone chooses what he likes most, there will always be people that play tankgaren or CDRgaren, you've just got to choose what Garen you like most and i'm just giving you guys another possibility :D

BUT, AD GAREN IS MUCH BETTER IN 3v3 THAN 5v5!!!!!!! You can only play AD Garen depending on your team: you've got to have enough tanks, taunts, stuns and fears, because otherwise you will die before doing any dammage in the 5vs5 teamfight (unless you're fed^^)!!!

So I hope my guide will help those lost demacian followers, that miss our armoured friend 'Sir Spinsalot'

Faladir

PS: Any advice/updates/help is always welcome in the comment section BELOOOOOW (RWJ ^^)

PPS: ignore my bad spelling ^^

Updates

patch v1.0.0.107: AD Garen has been born

patch

2/01/11: I have just updated the guide with a lot of images, specially for you guys: RedMetal and fumblesobrian ;)

patch v1.0.0.110: 3 big changes: -Doran iteams are more expensive!!! this has a huge inpact on the fb-brawl
-Last Whisper is waaaaaaay more expensive, this has led me to alter the build quite seriously (entering youmuu's)
-Exhaust has been modified, now its waaaay better :)

28/02/11: updating my guide concerning the last patch

ATM i've got some major exams (till february) so I wont be updating stuff since i've got to study, but next time I will try to find a way to make a nice skilling order picture, add some nice coloring ^^ and update the dammage output :P

26/08/11: SORRY GUYS!!!!! Been a half year non-active since it was an extremely busy year, but it wat time I improved my guide, if you haven't checked anymore, since this date, than pls, start over, cuz it has changed a lot! ^^
btw, garen got a few amazing buffs in the past few months:
- our speedboost from decisive strike last a second longer
- the cap from armor and MR from our shield is now 25 at all levels instead of 5/10/15/20/25
- the CD on our spin has been reduced by a second
- we got a BMS of 325 again ^^

24/09/11: okay, so the latest patch was a big one for garen
- first they nerfed Decisive strike by reducing the scaling by 0.1 (1.5 -> 1.4), it's a nerf, but acceptable
- second they nerfed our spin for 10 dmg/sec on every level, which has a HUUUUUUGE difference in early game since we'll be spinning 30 dmg less (which can rly make a difference, I alrdy noticed ingame -.-), but they improved the scaling by 0.2 (1.2 -> 1.4) which buffs our endgame, so that kinda makes it okay, because early game we were OP, but endgame is a lot harder for garen, so it was a good desicion to nerf our early game and buff our endgame...
Nevertheless, it's still a nerf :( (which apparentley doesn't stop ppl from reporting me because I 'play Garen' :P (PS: for those who do not get it, it means I totally powned their asses :P))

15/10/11: I noticed that our spin can only crit on the bonus dg, not the base dmg, so I'm tweaking the build order a little, as well as giving another build option

This is one epic skill, though it's end game muuuuuuch better than early game. I normally get 1 point in this at lvl 2 and a second one when 10, just for the silence and speedboost and easy harrasing, the main dmg from this comes from your AD anyway which is way higher endgame

but the best thing about this is the silence, I mean 2,5 seconds !?!?! That's..., that's..., that's like forever! it's the silence that interrupts those damn ults, keeps those champions from saving their asses with flash, ghost, CCs or any other escaping mechanism and renders champions like veygar, kassa, ezreal, malzahar, fiddle and all those other mages completely USELESS for 2,5 sec, which results in them being dead before they can do their real dmg

NOTE: Silence will NOT prevent tryn for using his ult, his other abilities do get disabled
NOTE: (almost) all effects that would take place with auto-attack (like slow from Frozen Mallet or lizard buff, even lifesteal :D) also synergize with Decisive Strike!!!!

Shields FTW, this thing makes garen a viable AD champ without being squishy.
It has a real nice passive and the shield can turn deaths into kills
BUT THIS DOESN'T MAKE YOU INVINCIBLE, its not like tankgaren, who had massive health and def/MR,if they would all ult you now, you wont survive with 50 percent, but the shield can save you and and your team (since you're still alive ^^), IF activated on the right time!
Activating this skill on exactly the right moment in teamfights is what makes this a skill that really demands 'skill' :P

This really is one of the best early-games skills in LoL, in 3v3 it gives your team 90% of the time the upper hand in the 'FB-brawl' ;), even while laning this can bring 1-2 enemy champs to half their health, even more when they're squishy
It's also great for dealing with creepwaves and farming monsters, cuz I love its AoE ^^
This is the easiest part of garen, cuz jumping out of bush and spinning in enemies' faces isn't all that hard

But the escaping part does require some skill, cuz your spin negates slows (no snares :(!!) and reducing the duration of the slows inflicted while spinning by 50%, if you've got enemies with more than one CC, dont use it immediately after the first one, if you're lucky and they get greedy they'll overspam all their CC at the same time and then you'll spin (removing the slow effects en run out of range with Decisive Strike
If they've got snares, well you're pretty much fucked then if your teammates are already dead, when snared while trying to escape, use spin when they come near enough to do atleast some dmg before dying

As I said before, this skill loses power endgame, cuz you'll hit practically the same dmg with auto attack and your autoattack has lifesteal :P, but:
1)in teambattles its AoE and blurry and confusing spinning gives a greater advantage in dmg and psychological warfare cuz, Who wouldnt freak out if a huge knight comes spinning an enormous sword in your face? (you can save teammates like this by spinning between you and enemies so they'll hesitate and thus stop chasing)
2)and while chasing that last champ you can better spin than auto-attack because:
- spin has a slightly longer range
- if you auto-attack you've got to stop an instant to swing your huge sword and that right there
can cost you a kill
- "Yes, I will slow that stupid Garen, MWAHAHAhuh? WHAAAA he's not slowing down! he has started
spi*swish*....*gurgle*"

NOTE: the spin scales with BONUS AD, not your regular AD!
NOTE: the base dammage can not crit, only the bonus dammage can proc with crit
NOTE: this does NOT synergize with lifesteal
NOTE: you can end your spin prematurely by rehitting 'E' in case you misspinned and want to reduce the CD with 3sec or if you want to ult someone

An overall great ulti but with a few disadvantages:
1) it takes a while to fully master it, because we want to deal as much dmg as possible, dont we ;)
you'll have to do some practice games before you can decently use this ulti!
2) Noobs will bitch about KS, ignore them, no such thing as KS in a good team
3) It has a small delay, cuz of the animation, so if they kill you or go stealth (like in a bush) before the animation is finished, the ult will not proceed, however, if they simply go out of range (with ghost or flash) wbetween the animation and the actual ult, then they will receive the dammage and they'll be like 'wtf, hax, your ult doesn't reach that far!'

If you train this ulti knowing all this, you can fully master it and own the shit out of those low health champs, when mastered you can kill fullheath squishies when they're in in the mid of the lane by: silence, spin,(shield for turret), ulti, (ignite): sometimes its really as simple as that and this can cause a ragequit because they had the feeling there was nothing they could do and thus you have won the game :P

Note: you can use your ulti to bring a champ below 150 so your carry can finish it
Note: you can also use your ult in a teamfight when you know you're about to die so you can give your teammates a bigger chance to still win the teamfight

Masteries + Runes (UPDATED)

Masteries: 21/9/0

The choice option are fairly simple, there is just 1 alternate choice, which even had me doubting: 4% CDR (nice) + 10% Mpen on ult, or 4% AS (totally useless) and 10% Apen (procs with most of our dmg, but we alrdy have a lot of flat Apen and is the Apen worth 5 mastery points?), I tried both and both were pretty succesfull, but then again the Apen is better in endgame games, and we both know we can use the help if the game reaches endgame

you
see, AD quints are by far the WORST choice one can make for garen,
because you'll only be stronger on level 1 and 2, that is if you don't
pick a dorans blade, because you'll have even less '%extra dmg' on level 3, the armor pen quints catch up on you and will be stronger during the rest of the match

Still,
i personally prefer the health quints, becasue they are equally strong
as the AD quints during the first 3 levels and just as strong as the
armor pen quints on level 3-6, and i like being able to spin twice in teamfights
before and killing them for sure, instead of spinning once, and dying
before i can spin again...

3v3 (UPDATED)

Okay, this guide is specialised in 3v3, having played like 800 games in 3v3 (500 with garen alone), has convinced me that garen is better in 3v3 than in 5v5, since garen lacks any real tanking abilities, but you can't play ad garen in 5v5 since you'll die practically instantly in teamfights (especially endgame)

BUILD 1

So this is it: WHAT TO BUY?

Before I start with our corebuild, I want to clarify that (when playing 3vs3) YOU HAVE TO BUY Sight Wards and POTIONS, since you'll have a high chance of owning and everyone knows map-awareness can win you the game, but ofc you've got to discuss with your teammates to buy them at turns if possible

NO, we DON'T buy Doran's Blade, because we need the 10 armor, 20 extra health and 8 health regen more than we need the 10 dmg and 3% lifesteal, trust me!

try to stay in lane till you have 1000g or atleast 350g so you can immediately buy Boots of Swiftness or at least Boots of Speed and a few POTIONS
(you can also buy Mercury's Treads vs stun, slow, etc... and for MR or Ninja Tabi when they've got a lot of auto-attackers, but i normally prefer to be superfly with my winged boots ^^)

NOTE: ppl have been asking about Ionian Boots of Lucidity, i can see why it may seem as a viable option since garen only has cooldown on his skills, and if you want you can take them, but I myself prefer to be faster with my lvl3 boots and with 12% cdr from runes and masteries, 15% from Youmuu's Ghostblade and 10% from green buff or blue elixir, you'll hit 37% without cdr boots, but you'll have to wait till endgame for the full cdr

Our next items will be B. F. Sword and/or Vampiric Scepter, this will dramatically make us stronger, it'll make us able to clear a full minion wave with 1 spin around lvl 9 and it'll help us rape our enemies even more ^^ (i usually not go back till i got enough for B. F. Sword, unless i got no choice, Vampiric Scepter can wait till (much) later, if you want to save up

Next up [Cloak of Agility], this will boost your damage output in everyway, spin and auto attacks, and it'll make last hitting easier, but it's really just a build item for the next item

Time to trade up for a bigger and fancier sword! So buy Infinity Edge! w00t for Sir Rapesalot!

40% of the games will end here, by them surrendering (feeling like you're not owning as hard as you should be, gettink killed a lot? Go to BUILD 2 down below)

By now, most games have alrdy ended because you've alrdy made over 10 kills and are totally raping the enemy team, but if the game is persisting (because you have strong opponents or feedy teammates), you'll notice you deal a ton of dmg, but you're kinda squishy
that's why we'll buy 2 def items at this point

our 2 def items will be a choice out of these 3:

1) Sunfire Cape: if we've got to buy a bit of armor or health, then why not bot and some AoE magic dammage and it's always nice to remember the good old days :D and as you might remember the passive can net you a kill while chasing a 5%champ even if they're invisible ;)

2)[item=Force of Nature]: they've got a ton of mages? rush this, rly nice passive that synergizes well with healthitems like Sunfire Cape or Frozen Mallet, movementspeed (nuff' said :P) and you wont find more MR on any other item

3) Frozen Mallet: the good thing about this defensive item that's it's also very offensive, with the slowing passive and the little bit of AD, it has 1 downside though, it's more expensive than the other 2 def items (about 600g)

out of these 3, I use the combo of Sunfire Cape and [item_text=Force of Nature] 90% of the times, I only use Frozen Mallet when they practically only have magic dmg or only have physical dmg (together with the respective item that provides the right bonus ofc)
at this point, you'll be an unstoppable wrecking machine

If the game wtill hasn't ended (happens only 1/25 games) you'll have the choice of buying one last item, which is obviously going to be offensive, mostly you'll end up with Youmuu's Ghostblade because of the CDR, the armor pen, the crit, the ad and ofc the amazing active. This active is perfect for garen when you're either chasing someone, or when all your skills are on cd in a fight, just pop this to dramatically increase your AS till your skills are free again

but, however, it'd be better to buy something else if your enemy team has a lot of armor(2 with 150+ armor) or especially if they have a few Thornmails, you'd better buy Last WhisperFrozen Mallet would also be viable if you want to be super tanky and want the ability to slow ppl, altough I rarely do this

after that all you can do is buy elixirs (blue for cdr, green for crit and AS, and red for health and AD)

BUILD 2

STEP 1: copy BUILD 1 till the referral to this section

STEP 2: we'll put a hold on the extra dmg from The Bloodthirster and alrdy buy some defensesince we alrdy have some decent base defense from Courage, the logical step is to buy health: Giant's Belt, now we've got 3 choices: A: you suddenly get around 2k gold and have enough to finish Warmog's ArmorB: the economic crisis is affecting you cuz you lack dammage or their auto attackers are raping you, buy Atma's ImpalerC: their mages are raping you like you're a vibrator made of candy, buy MR, namely Negatron Cloak,

complete all these steps, in order that your prefer/need, then build your Negatron Cloak into a [item=Force of Nature]

This is all there is to my 3v3 itemlists, there is not much room for alternative routes because I have tested EVERY possibility and build, but this one is (to my own experience) the best
Master this build and I GARENtee you that you'll win 7,5/10 games, the 2,5/10 games you'l lose will be because you have an extremely unlucky matchup team, if you have a feeding noob in your team, or if you're just having a bad game (happens to everyone once in a while)... OR IF YOU HAVE BAD TEAMPLAY! AD garen is useless if you or your team can't play as a team!

our auto attack will do 330 dmg and 858dmg every crit (4.2/10 attacks)
our Decisive Strike will do 552dmg and will lifesteal 130 health
and our [spell=Judgement] will do around 2138.5 dmg over 3 seconds (crit included)

our auto attack will do 375dmg and 975dmg every crit (4.5/10 attacks)
our Decisive Strike will do 615dmg and will lifesteal 154 health
and our [spell=Judgement] will do around 2530 dmg over 3 seconds (crit included)

COMPARING BUILD 1 and 2:you must have noticed that build 2 has substantially more health (1000) and dmg (45), for almost the same cost, but has to give in return the AS and MS from youmuu's active, the 15%CDR and 20 armor pen from it's passive, and the 35dmg/sec from sunfire's passiveBUILD 2 has substantially more survivability, but at the cost of some utility and BUILD 2 is harder to obtain, because the moment between infinty edge and atma's impaler, is your most vulnerable moment in the game, but afterwards, you'll be rewarded ^^, so i switch regularly between these 2 builds ^^

5v5 items (UPDATED)

If you have a great team and a great lanepartner whom you're on voice chat with, you can try the same build as in 3v3, but your team has to protect you at all cost, because the enemy team will soon notice your insane dmg output and they'll focus you like hell and you'll be dead in 1.5 sec, before you can fully spin or even ult

otherwise don't even bother trying to build the same ad garen, that's why I build garen as a tank-offtank in 5v5

Health: check
Damage: check
Armor: check
MR:hmmm, 3 guesses what we'll be buying: indeed! a [item=Force of Nature], I don't really have to explain why, now do I?

ATM we're tanky as hell, so a little extra dammage will never hurt us, so next up, we'll change our rusty sword for an Infinity Edge, now we'll have like 140 bonus AD and 45% crit, sounds nice doesn't it ;)

The last item can be trickyand is 100% situational

DOES YOUR TEAM LACK A REAL TANK:

Frozen Mallet: another shitload of health to synergise with [item_text=Force of Nature] and Atma's Impaler, and thus gives 700HP, 11.75HP/5, 34 AD, and a slow on hit, idd very nice ^^

Thornmail: if they have 3 auto attacker, than this item is a must have

Randuin's Omen: a lot of armor, small bit of health, a lot of health regen and a nice active and passive, that can save a lot of lives of you you and/or your teammates and even can help your team get a few kills

Sunfire Cape: still a decent item, the aoe passive can rly make a difference in a long teamfight

Guardian Angel: decent amount of armor and MR, and a nice passive, not one of my favorites though :P

Now, you must be asking why we don't do the same thing in 3v3, since we seem to have better stats now? Well the thing is, you need full build to be good with this build, and that takes a long while, since it's very expensive, in 3v3 you wouldn't even get to full Force of nature in 90% of the cases, so that's why we go the way we go in 3v3

Skilling order (UPDATED)

Generally I start with my spin, especially in 3v3 because we need it in teamfights and the fact that it's great for doing damage while chasing enemies, while the silence is good for silencing, doing burst dmg and catching up to fleeing champsthe spin is also better in teamfights and duolanes (Fb-brawl), so in 3v3 i take spin 95% times first, if I know they won't come and I have toplane, then I take my silence at lvl 1

we only need 1 point in courage at lvl 4 because leveling it higher only gives us 4% extra dmg reduction per level on our shield, and that's a low priority

(most cases)

Summoner Abilities (UPDATED)

Every Garen MUST have Ghost
use this and your spin and your like a mixer on acid, Garen without this = brainless noob (This I do mean as an offense to Non-ghost using Garens)

as second spell I used to prefer Ignite, but now I prefer the new and improved Exhaust, because, Ignite kinda loses its power endgame (that's just my opinion), while exhaust is much better in teamfights because of slow and its 'debuff', one wellplaced exhaust can really win you the fight, and a slow is like the one thing garen really misses

All the other spells are either silly, practically useless, REALLY REALLY STUPID (I mean ofc Clarity)
or just not as good as Ignite or Exhaust

PS: beginners are allowed to take Heal as their second ability, since they're still learning

Laning (REWORKING...)

3V3

Solo lane:
Garen is made for toplane in 3v3, because it has a lot of bushes and garen in a good match vs typical 3v3 toplane champs, like Tryndamere and Mordekaiser (haven't lost a toplane vs a mordekaiser in over 100 games, even when he got fed in firstblood (which rarely happened ^^))
even though last hitting is a little harder for garen in earlygame he is still a viable choice for top lane, because his spin is just downright scary and thus an excellent zoning skill (well, wouldn't you run if a huge spinning sword came your way :P?)

(WORKING ON VIDEO)

Duo lane
If you're not top in 3v3 or any other time in 5v5, try to pick someone from you 'Buddies' (see below) or someone with a stun or atleast a snare and again bushes are your friend!
Let me demonstrate how this tactic works with a decorative and yet informative picture that resembles the reality outcome of such a situation

Buddies and Archenemies (UPDATED)

Buddies

1.
LUX: she's your hot sister from Demacia, so you guys have to own together, certainly with her double snare AND slow AND shield, if you guys lane together you will most certainly dominate your lane

2.
SION: 2 sec stun :O..., from all the stuns this one is the best cuz it has 2 sec from the start

3.
XIN ZHAO: You rly can't fail with 2 Demacians in one lane

4.
BLITZCRANK: Pull and stun, need I say more?

5. every Champion with a stun or snare or very strong slow (nunu for example)

Archenemies

1.
DR. MUNDO: AAAAAAAAARGH, FUCK I hate this guy, you can hardly harass him, cuz he keeps throwing those cleavers (that slows you and has a ridiculously low CD) even when you're in your bush and when you finally get him to halfhealth, he'll just use his ult and you can start all over

2.
KENNEN:he can throw his shurikens through bushes aswell -.- and every time you run towards him he either stuns you or runs away just out of range, GRRRRRR :(

3.
WARWICK: He'll just outheal your dammage or harrasment :(, just like any other DPS champ with decent survivability and lifesteal (like ww, nocturn, olaf, and udyr)

4.
TEEMO: THOSE FRICKIN' SHROOMS, THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!!!

5.
LEBLANC: it's just impossible to get near her -.-, God it's frustrating

DO NOT TRY TO SOLO LANE VS THESE GUYS UNLESS IT'S THE ONLY OPTION

PS: this doesn't mean you cant win from these guys, it just means it's really hard and why take needless risks? Just gank the suckers ^^

Credits

First of all I want to thank rusPiglet, because I based a lot ideas on his original guide because it used to be the one and onlt guide for garen, but because of the changes to garen the last year I believe (I might be wrong ofc) that's it isn't as viable as it used to be, so that's why I made this guide, but It still is a great guide!

Now pls excuse me, I'm gonna play another game because making this guide took WAAAAAY too long :P